Geesteranus, Johannes (1586-1622)

Johannes Geesteranus, born 1586 at Alkmaar, a member of a Dutch family of which many members served the Reformed Church as pastors, was a Reformed pastor himself, serving at Vreeland 1609-1617?, and Alkmaar 1617?-1619. In this year he was dismissed on the charge of Socinianism. He soon joined the Rijnsburg Collegiant movement and was the first to receive baptism by immersion at Rijnsburg. He declined an appointment as rector (president) of the Socinian College at Rakow, Poland. After his dismissal he had made his living by weaving. When action was taken against the Socinians in the Netherlands Geesteranus settled at Norden, East Friesland, Germany. Here he met with two other ex-Reformed ministers, both also dismissed—his brother Petrus Geesteranus, and Dirk Rafaelsz Camphuysen, to whom he was bound by a warm friendship. In 1622 Geesteranus, his wife, and his only son died of the plague at Norden. Geesteranus is said to have shared the Anabaptist view that a Christian should not assume a government office.